


Sleepless

by Ori (magnetium)



Series: Sleepless [1]
Category: The West Wing
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-01-26
Updated: 2007-01-26
Packaged: 2017-12-29 05:35:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1001624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magnetium/pseuds/Ori
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Toby is re-visted by the past on a cold New Hampshire night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sleepless

Toby is not a sound sleeper. He sleeps in fits and starts, his dreams coming swift and furious upon him until he wakes up to his fingers twisting the fabric of the sheets below him. Tonight is no different, even though the sounds of the city are absent. Here in a dark bedroom on a farm in New Hampshire, the only things he can hear are the soft outside sounds of the country: crickets, the wind, and the occasional animal noise. In fact, it might be the absence of the city noises that keeps him more restless than usual, tossing and turning on the sheets of his bed, the blankets thrown off to the side.

Because he doesn’t sleep deeply, it’s not easy to sneak up on him. Sounds rouse him easily, and tonight the creaking of the oak bedroom door is no different. He stays where he is, lying on his side, faced away from the door, hoping that whoever it is will think better of disturbing him and leave. Then he feels a hand, soft and dry, on his shoulder. He turns over, onto his back, and looks up into the eyes of his President.

“Did I wake you?” The leader of the most powerful nation in the world is worried that he has woken him.

Toby shakes his head, wishing now that he’d kept at least a sheet on top of himself, as he feels very exposed, clad only in a pair of white briefs and his own pale skin.

“No, sir, I don’t really sleep.”

Jed Bartlet chuckles. “Who does? Scoot over.”

Toby swallows and moves as instructed, starting to feel a little sick. There was a time, which seems so long ago now, when it was not unusual for him to share his bed with this man. But that was another time, another life. There was an unspoken agreement to forget about those nights when the campaign was victorious. It was necessary and really, not altogether that troubling. There are certain men you can share space in your bed with under the secret shroud of night, touching and breathing against each other until the sun rises, and there are certain men you cannot. One of those that you cannot is the President of the United States.

This understanding is being strained at this moment by the fact that the President is making himself comfortable on Toby’s bed. He can feel the blood rushing in his ears and wonders if, at any moment, the door will swing open and Sam, or Josh, or a Secret Service agent will be standing there, yelling at him to get up and get away from the President.

“You look troubled, Toby.”

“Yes, sir. Was there… something you needed, Mr. President?”

“Toby, I’m not sure it’s best practice to use my title while I’m lying next to you in bed. Why don’t you stick with ‘Jed’ for now.”

Toby stares at him, waiting for an explanation, his pulse increasing at the amusement playing across the President’s face.

Finally, Jed relents and speaks.

“I was having trouble sleeping, Toby. I guess we all are. But I seemed to remember a time when I slept very well – all through the night, in fact.”

Toby nods, slowly. “That was a very long time ago, sir. I’m not sure it’s appropriate to bring it up now.”

“Are you saying I’m being inappropriate?” Jed chuckles and leans back, his t-shirt stretching around his torso. A few graying hairs poke up beneath the collar of the shirt and Toby remembers with a lurch of his stomach what it was like to run his fingers through those hairs.

Toby sits up, looking carefully at him. “I’m not sure what you want from me here.”

“I thought that part was fairly obvious.”

“It’s not.”

“I just want – I need a good night’s sleep, Toby.”

“Then may I suggest a glass of warm milk and any number of lengthy economics papers that I’m sure are lying all around the house.”

Jed makes a disgusted noise. “And I would suggest not being snide about my field of expertise. But putting that aside for a minute, you know that’s not what I meant.”

“Sir, you’re going to have to clarify for me, because I’m truly at a loss here.”

Jed sits up, frustration flashing in his eyes. “For God’s sake, man, I just got in bed with you when I have a perfectly good – and much softer – one of my own, just upstairs. I haven’t alerted you to any matter of national security, or brought up foreign policy – if there’s more than one thing I could possibly have on my mind right now, I’d be interested to hear it!”

Toby sighs. “I can’t – I can’t do that.”

Jed raises an eyebrow. “I didn’t think you were seeing anyone.”

“I’m not.”

Suddenly Jed stiffens and puts one of his legs over the side of the bed. “Oh. You don’t want to. Well, that’s fine, you should have just sa – ”

Toby can’t take the look on his face and reaches out, touching Jed’s arm.

“No, it’s not – ” He takes a breath and chooses his words with caution. “I do want to, Jed, but this isn’t the campaign. You know as well as I do that we have to be careful. About everything.”

Jed shrugs. “I wasn’t planning on having C.J. release details at her next briefing, Toby.”

“We don’t formally release a lot of things that get out, sir.”

“That’s true, but we’re also not at the White House right now, with a lot of ears and mouths all waiting for us to do something stupid.” He gestures around at the house. “Look around, Toby. It’s just you, me, and the rest of the senior staff. Abbey’s in Dublin, and even though all of these agents would rather die than leak personal details about me, none of them are close enough to even hear us talking.”

His mention of Abbey makes Toby’s stomach drop again. Back then, during the campaign, it hadn’t been much of an issue. Her and Jed were open and honest with each other, and he was pretty sure she’d known about their occasional trysts. She’d never said anything, but a warm smile and a squeeze of his arm on the mornings after had both baffled and reassured him.

When they’d won, though, things had changed. It was expected, and Toby had no illusions that things would continue the way they had been, but he had been surprised at Abbey’s sudden territoriality. She hadn’t been cold to him, not exactly, but she had made it clear that Jed was now off-limits. Toby had respected that and still does, so the thought of what her reaction would be to Jed sitting in his bed now makes him distinctly uneasy.

Jed is staring at him, waiting for a response. Toby clears his throat.

“Abbey wouldn’t – ”

Jed makes a noise of impatience. “Oh, forget about that right now! Abbey tells me to get more exercise and eat less steak, do you see me doing either of those things?”

Toby raises an eyebrow. “So would I be the exercise or the steak in this metaphor?”

“Take your pick.” Jed finally relaxes a little. “Anyway, I’m done talking now. We’ve only got a couple of hours before the sun comes up, so unless you ask me to leave, we’re doing this.” He moves closer to Toby, putting an arm around him.

The feel of his arm dissolves some of Toby’s arguments even as they sit on the tip of his tongue. The warmth radiating from the other man’s body feels good against his cold, clammy skin. He had forgotten what this felt like. Now he remembers.

Jed kisses his neck: little kisses, light but firm, intent on their purpose as he works his way down Toby’s chest. Toby looks down and winces at the sight of his own stomach, considerably flabbier than the last time they did this. Then all his thoughts leave him as his world condenses down to one electrical point on his body – the kisses have reached their destination and have turned into sharp sucklings.

He gasps out Jed’s name, unable to stop his fingers from going up and into Jed’s hair. He can feel his briefs being tugged down, and knows he should feel naked, horribly exposed, but Jed’s body is like a fortress, hiding him from the rest of the world.

Together they wrestle with the initial contact, so sharp and good, until Toby remembers what it feels like to be comfortable against Jed’s skin. The old calluses on his hands scratch Toby wherever they touch him and make him shiver, just like they used to. Soon enough, Jed has shed his clothes, and Toby splays his fingers out on the wide, graying chest. He realizes with a sense of nostalgia that both of their bodies have changed, far more than any man’s body should in just a few short years; it truly is amazing what constant stress and pressure will do to the contours of a stomach, the pigment of one’s hair.

But the pressure of their lives hasn’t just affected their bodies. Toby remembers a time when each moment was savored; then they could be slow, and long, and languid. Now their movements are fast and rough, Jed’s gentle nature balanced by they way he grabs Toby and rubs him, almost desperate to create the pleasure both of them feel. Toby doesn’t complain. How could he, when despite all his misgivings, he doesn’t have the strength or the will to pull away? He prides himself on being so stoic, but in this moment the only thing he cares about is hearing Jed moan in his ear.

There in the cool morning air of a New Hampshire morning, the sun dancing just below the horizon, the dark room is filled with the sounds of two men, panting and grunting, one with his eyes shut tightly, the other with his eyes open and shining. They don’t speak more than a few words to each other, just quick, breathy directions, and occasionally each other’s name.

Just as the sun begins to lighten the fabric of the window curtains, slowly bringing everything in the room into blurred definition, they collapse. There is a warmth radiating all around Toby, and he almost laughs at how good he feels. He knows it won’t last for long, so he closes his eyes again and breathes it in, only opening them again when strong fingers grab his jaw and pull him into a hard, possessive kiss. 

Then they lay still for a while, letting their overworked hearts slow down and their breathing regulate. The gravity of their sin begins to weigh on him, but he can’t be sure if it’s emotional weight or simply the pressure of Jed’s body resting on his.

Finally, the sun has lit up too much of the room for them to stay prone, wrapped up in each other. Jed sits up, a complicated expression on his face – one Toby recognizes as the one he often sees when the President has a difficult decision before him, or a hard phone call to make. He tempers the expression with a brush of his hand against Toby’s cheek, but Toby can already feel his defenses coming back up, filtering out everything not central to the issue he’s concentrating on.

Jed’s voice is heavy and gentle, as though he is talking to a horse that spooks easily. “Thank you, Toby.”

Toby shrugs. “Thank you, Mr. President.”

Toby sees Jed process his words, changing his expression almost imperceptibly. He rises and dresses himself, putting back on a pair of plaid pajama pants that Toby didn’t see the night before. The corner of his mouth turns up a little at the sight of them, their mountain-man reds and greens turning the President once again into the former governor of New Hampshire.

Toby pulls the blanket around himself, watching the President. He clears his throat. “If anyone notices and asks, we’ll say we were discussing foreign policy.”

Jed shakes his head. “If we were discussing anything important, we would have done it in the living room or the study. Just tell them we were reminiscing about old times.”

Toby pulls the blanket a little tighter and nods. “All right.”

Jed gives him a smile. “Get some sleep, Toby. God knows you need it.” He leans in and presses a brief kiss against Toby’s cheek, then turns and walks out of the room, shutting the door quietly behind him.

After he leaves, Toby lies back down and tries to sleep, but no matter how deep he buries his head in his pillow, he can’t block out all the images and sounds that flood through his mind. Finally he gets up and goes into the bathroom that connects to his bedroom, turning on the shower and filling the space with the hot hiss of water. Sleep is a pipe dream, something that he has heard about, but is never quite able to achieve.

And anyway, it’s time to get up. 


End file.
